But at the same time, figures from the Home Office show that curfews are failing to stop youngsters from re-offending.
Council chiefs in Manchester stress that ASBOs are not a miracle cure but say they do set standards of behaviour.
The city council has used them widely and, according to their figures, just 17 per cent of people given them, including adults, go on to re-offend.
But more than 75 per cent of the 777 offenders aged 10 to 17 who were placed under curfew orders in England and Wales in the first quarter of 2003 were re-convicted within a year.
Coun Eddy Newman, Manchester's executive member for housing, said: "ASBOs are not a miracle cure but they are a useful tool and act as a super warning.
"If you abide by them you don't have to face any penalties but if you breach them you face may a custodial sentence and that is a strong warning to the majority.
"It makes them realise there are serious consequences if they do not adjust their behaviour.
"We use them to reclaim communities back from a small minority of people who don't care about their neighbours."
A spokesman for the Home Office insisted that curfew orders and tagging were useful but that they were effective when used with education programmes and offending behaviour courses.
Home office minister Hazel Blears said curfew orders were successfully keeping people off the streets - even if those people re-offended when their orders ran out.
"We constantly keep under review a range of penalties," she said.
"Curfew orders have a part to play to keep people off the streets after dark." Tweet
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Why should we be concerned about ASBOs?
ASBOs criminalise non-criminal behaviour. Their use is being actively promoted to all local authorities throughout England and Wales by the Home Office which has now begun to deploy "ASBO ambassadors" to speed up their adoption. For the authorities with whom the ASBO has already found favour, it has not taken long for them to push the parameters for which it was originally intended. This stems largely from the vagueness of the government's definition of what constitutes "anti-social behaviour"
From an original remit of tackling low-level nuisance behaviour such as vandalism and abusive neighbours, local authorities and police forces have found ASBOs to be a hugely effective tool for quashing many other challenges to authority. Here environmental and political protesters, in particular, have found themselves subject to temporary orders and other powers introduced under the Anti-social Behaviour Act. Protesting now appears to be both an anti-social and potentially criminal act. As is sarcasm for an 87 year-old great-grandfather in Liverpool, taken to court for breaching the ASBO banning him from shouting, swearing or making sarcastic comments to his neighbours.
This is just one example of the many orders handed out for petty transgressions, often to children in what perhaps constitutes the most alarming development of all. Rather than tackle the causes of their nuisance behaviour the preferred route appears to be to criminalise it and risk further alienating them from the community in which they live. Related to this is the encouragement for local communities to take an active role in both the issuing (by working with their local authorities) and enforcement (through reporting any breaches) of orders.
Already the admissibility of hearsay evidence, in the application process, facilitates an extraordinary high success rate (for the 3,069 orders issued to the end of March, only 42 requests were turned down by the courts). Moreover, by the end of 2003 not a single order had been overturned on appeal and nor is one likely to be after Lord Justice Kennedy's recommendation that the automatic right to appeal an order be removed (see "Press Road Gang" case below). The government seems intent on making it as quick and easy as possible to serve an order. The five-year strategic plan, published in July 2004, both sped up the application process and made it easier for the media to report ASBO recipients. On 24 October, Lord Chancellor Lord Falconer unveiled changes to the application process under which witnesses can provide evidence behind a screen (hidden from the defendant), in private, by live-link, and through video-recorded testimony.
The next step, currently under consideration, is for local people to instigate order applications themselves. Methods of triggering action under consideration include petitions, referendums and town hall meetings. Given the increasing unlikelihood that an application be turned down, this would appear to provide great potential for manipulation.
Equally disturbing are orders made on conviction ("CRASBOs") which serve to punish an individual twice for their crime. The implicit assumption behind them is that the individual is likely to re-offend upon release, a standpoint that totally undermines the idea of prison as a rehabilitative institution. Serious questions must be asked of the message re-criminalising people, as soon as they have served their punishment, sends both to prospective employers and the individuals themselves about their prospects of reintegrating into society. The truth is that ASBOs are a punishment based on the assumption that somebody will commit a crime, rather than that they have committed a crime.
Francesca Tucker
Someone needs to challenge all these civil laws in the European Courts. I think that they contravene the Human Rights Act.
what a load of garbage. 80% do not breach them?? what they mean is 80% get away with breaching them because the police just do not have time to monitor those on ASBOs. I personally know of seven young thugs, in my line of work, who breach away with impunity. The city centre (stockport) is full of them day and night. Government pen pushers, get your arses down into the cities and towns where most people live then tell me 80% sucess rate.